


Moondance

by queensmooting



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 23:16:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14389158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queensmooting/pseuds/queensmooting
Summary: Levi and Erwin visit the Underground after Kenny's death.





	Moondance

**Author's Note:**

> a fic for my lovely talented friend ongzori! wanted to give you some peaceful eruris since you're always blessing us with them in happy moments <3 thank you for being a treasure to this fandom!

Levi jogs alone at dawn. It used to be he would meet Erwin at the trailhead with two canteens. They would run together in affable silence, Erwin’s heavy breathing as much a part of his morning as the rising sun.

 

These days Erwin’s too busy to leave his office, let alone take a recreational hour. The Shiganshina expedition is in two weeks. Levi drags a forearm across his brow and picks up his pace.

 

When he returns he sees Hange and Moblit in the training yard, dressed to work out. When Hange spots Levi they wave their arms over their head, flagging him down.

 

“Someone’s looking for you,” Hange says when Levi joins them. “I told him to wait in your office.”

 

“Who is it?”

 

“Some guy in a suit, I dunno. He says he’s from a legal firm in Sina. It sounds important.”

 

A looming cloud of a headache threatens at the bridge of his nose. He has enough to worry about without strangers dropping in on him.

 

“Thanks, Hange.”

 

Hange eyes the sweat-soaked collar of his shirt. “You might want to clean up first.”

 

“Thanks, Hange!”

 

*

 

Levi only throws a towel around his neck before heading to his office. The sweat drying on his clothes makes him fidgety but he wants to settle this so he can shower with his mind at ease.

 

There’s a man inside sitting on the chair Levi sleeps in on occasion. Nothing else in the office ever gets used. Erwin’s has everything he needs.

 

“Captain Levi.” 

 

The man adjusts his wire glasses and stands, clutching a folder. He extends his hand.

 

When Levi was small he would climb high enough to spy on the streets of Mitras through a rain gutter. This man’s dour face and businesslike demeanor remind Levi of the people he used to watch, entrenched in the bustle of their lives, too busy to glance down or hear a child’s voice.

 

Levi gives the man’s hand a glance, then continues swiping at his neck with the towel. The man grips the folder awkwardly.

 

“If this isn’t a good time--”

 

“What do you want?” Levi asks.

 

“My office in Mitras handles last wills, testaments, and estate closures in Wall Sina. I’m here seeking out beneficiaries of one such--”

 

Levi tightens his hold on the towel, having half a mind to strangle himself with it. “Get to the point.”

 

The man’s jaw clenches. “Captain, are you familiar with Kenny Ackerman?”

 

“Kenny the Ripper?” Levi asks. He keeps his face neutral. “Obviously.”

 

“What was your personal connection with him?”

 

Levi eyes the folder, wishing he could see through it. He treads lightly. “I knew him as a kid in the Underground. Spent some time in his gang, then I never saw him again.”

 

“That’s all?”

 

“That’s all.”

 

“Hm.” The man hands him the folder. “You must’ve meant more to him than that. You were named his sole beneficiary.”

 

Levi opens the folder. Inside are a few stamped and embossed legal documents, and a crinkled old envelope with his name written on it.

 

Levi tosses everything else on the desk and opens the envelope flap. He glares back up at the man.

 

“This letter’s already been opened and resealed. I’m not an idiot.”

 

The man stares at the cold shine of his shoes. Levi unfolds the letter, written in a large, lazy scrawl.

 

_ Levi, _

 

_ If you’re reading this I’m dead. Lucky you. _

 

_ I’m not your father, in case you’ve been wondering all these years. Again, lucky you. Can’t tell you how I knew your mom, not in writing, but I did care about her, about as much as this cold old heart could care for anyone. Maybe as you’re reading this now I’m back with her somewhere. Who knows. _

 

_ I’m sure you’ve had enough of my bullshit for a lifetime, so I’ll keep it brief. Being as you’re the closest thing to a brat I’ve ever had, I’ve left you all my worldly possessions. It’s not as glamorous as it sounds, but it’s yours. _

 

_ You’ll find everything in my safehouse on Iron Street in the Underground City, the one with the tin coverings on the windows. If nothing else you’ll find some good memories there. _

 

_ Stay tough, kid. _

 

_ Kenny _

 

Levi feels the man’s eyes on him but can’t find his voice yet. Kenny tried to murder him, left him to fend for himself all those years ago, and still protected him by hiding their family connection. He understands Kenny less now than he ever did.

 

“Captain?” the man says. “Does everything make sense?”

 

Levi clears his throat. “I assume you’ve already raided the safehouse.”

 

“The man was a known murderer. We had to comb the place. But our business with Ackerman is finished. You have my permission to go and collect whatever you like.”

 

“ _ Your  _ permission,” Levi mumbles. He folds the letter and carefully tucks it back into the envelope. “Lucky me.”

 

-

 

Levi tells Erwin about the will over lunch. Anymore it’s the only time they have to see each other during the daylight. Erwin is quiet for a minute, mulling it over. Then he speaks carefully.

 

“I know you and Kenny didn’t have a...warm relationship, exactly--”

 

Levi laughs sharply.

 

“Understatement of the year?” Erwin asks, smiling.

 

“Of the century.”

 

Levi peers out the window where spring peppers the air with life, dragonflies flitting lazily in the sun and white petals falling like snowflakes. It still feels alien to draw breath when someone else no longer can.

 

“I wasted a lot of years hating him. I think I wanna go, you know? Settle shit if I can.”

 

“When would we go?”

 

Levi looks back at him. Erwin realizes what he said a moment later.

 

“I’m sorry, that was presumptuous. I wasn’t inviting myself along, I just--”

 

“What? It’s alright.”

 

“It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve seen you. With everything that’s happened the last few weeks, and now preparing for Shiganshina...I suppose I missed you is all. But it’s your family matter and you may go any time. I’d be interested to hear what Kenny left you when you return.”

 

Erwin avoids his eyes. It’s a rare thing to see him flustered. He can’t see how it makes Levi smile.

 

“You’ve been there. You know it’s a shit hole.”

 

“It gave me you,” Erwin says, as if that should settle it.

 

It’s Levi’s turn to look away. “Will you come or not?”

 

“If you want me. Yes.”

 

“Well, I do.” Levi pokes at a potato quarter with his fork. “So.”

 

Erwin returns to his lunch, looking pleased. “So.”

 

*

 

Levi’s always known the job would cost Erwin his life. It shouldn’t have surprised him to see Erwin brought back on a cart six weeks ago, white-faced and red-soaked and barely breathing. It shouldn’t have set a tremble in his heart that wouldn’t go away.

 

His feelings were always something he kept tucked away, unacknowledged, to be unpacked and processed when the time was right. Now nothing was right, and their time was running out.

 

The next morning he jogs alone. The sun rises quicker every day.

 

*

 

They wear civilian clothing to avoid attention in the Underground, and Levi wraps a scarf around most of his face to avoid recognition. He glares at Erwin when he catches him trying not to laugh at the sight.

 

The air grows staler, cooler as they descend the stairs to the city. The scents of concrete and smoke send him back five years, ten years, and further. He stops in his tracks, steadying himself with a hand on the damp wall, already feeling unclean.

 

This was where his mother decayed. Where Kenny left him, where he fought and bled and killed to survive. Where his friends lived, before Levi took them from their homes to die in a open field. Where he should have died, too--

 

A hand rests on his shoulder, gently guiding him to the present. 

 

“Are you alright?” Erwin asks.

 

Levi closes his eyes, closes off everything but the warmth and strength of the palm on his coat. This was where he took his first steps, where his mother sang to him and taught him the alphabet. Where his mother’s friends gave him flowers and snuck him bites of their rations. Where he met Erwin.

 

Where he learned to fly.

 

“Yeah,” Levi says. “Let’s go.”

 

*

 

Iron Street lay in the industrial part of the city, covered in black smoke from the mills and factories. The weary faces in the streets pay Levi and Erwin no mind, weaving their way to and from work.

 

“They break their backs twelve hours a day,” Levi explains. “And they have the best jobs in town. At least they get steady pay. It’s more than what most here can say.”

 

Erwin doesn’t respond until they turn onto a quieter street.

 

“I wish I could do more.”

 

Levi stops, turns to Erwin. “What?”

 

Erwin looks around at the tired eyes, the boarded-up shops. “What you’ve been doing with Historia, starting the orphanage...I admire it. I wish I had more time to help, to do something--”

 

“You have enough to do,” Levi says firmly. “Maybe after we retake Maria things will be different, yeah?”

 

Erwin’s smile is soft, almost pitying, as it has been whenever the subject comes up. Levi wishes more than anything he could make Erwin see beyond Shiganshina.

 

_ It’s alright, _ Levi thinks.  _ I’ll make sure he sees it for himself. _

 

*

 

Even without directions Levi could have picked out Kenny’s safehouse from every building in the city. The house reeks like a tavern and bullet holes litter the door. It looked like they had been shot from the inside.

 

“Go on,” Erwin says. “I’ll wait.”

 

Dusty light crawls into the single room through the holes in the door. There’s a table with two chairs in the center and a bed in the corner far too small for Kenny. Levi almost smiles imagining his uncle’s gangly legs sticking out over the ends as he snored. An empty gun rack hangs over the bed, and a wooden trunk lies at its foot.

 

Levi looks back at the pair of chairs, at the strangely small bed. He wonders if his mother lived here once, before the brothel. He wonders when she and Kenny drifted apart, when they stopped being a lifeline for each other. There was so much he’d never know now.

 

He goes to the trunk and kneels to open it. There’s a crocheted blanket lying on top, the yarn yellow and orange and warm as a candle. He doesn’t recognize the blanket until he touches it. Then he remembers.

 

He remembers sitting on the edge of his childhood bed while his mother brushed his hair. He remembers running his hands over the knit bumps of the blanket, poking his fingertips between the holes. He remembers how gently his mother untangled his hair, her soap-dried hands so careful not to tug on the snags.

 

Levi realizes he doesn’t want to do this alone.

 

“Hey Erwin. Come here.”

 

Erwin enters and sits at Levi’s side, moving so slowly he hardly disturbs the dust in the air. It feels respectful, and Levi can’t help feeling terribly endeared.

 

Levi removes the pack from his shoulders and carefully folds the blanket inside. Under the blanket Levi finds a few of Kenny’s old coats and hats. He wrinkles his nose at the smell. 

 

There are bags of cutlery, linens, touches too homey to attribute to his uncle. He sifts through maps of Sina and the Underground, drawn on sheets so old and delicate they nearly crumble in his hands. Anything of real value must have already been confiscated. No weapons, no money, not so much as a pocket knife.

 

Nothing catches his attention until he sees a large envelope at the bottom of the trunk. Inside are several yellowed letters folded with far greater care than Kenny’s coats. 

 

“They’re all signed by Uri Reiss,” Erwin says, looking over Levi’s shoulder.

 

“Could be something about the Coordinate in these.”

 

“Could be. I got the impression your uncle hated working for the Reiss family.”

 

“Maybe not all of them.” Levi runs a hand over the floor of the trunk, hoping to feel a hidden pocket, a secret latch. “Maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought.” He huffs a humorless laugh. “If I knew him at all.”

 

“You knew him,” Erwin says. “He left you everything he could. That means something.”

 

Levi smooths a hand over the blanket, the smell of his mother long gone from its stitches. He looks at Erwin, with stray tufts of hair sprouting loose in the grey light. 

 

The first time Kenny left him Levi had never felt so alone. This time he doesn’t feel alone at all.

 

Levi puts the letters in his pack and closes it. “This is good enough. Let’s get out of here.”

 

*

 

“This has me thinking,” Erwin says. “I should have my will updated.”

 

They’re still making their way through the Underground streets to the surface. Erwin speaks so casually it takes a moment to register with Levi. His blood chills.

 

He hadn’t thought about the expedition all day. Why did Erwin have to bring it up now?

 

Erwin looks down at the rigid set of Levi’s shoulders. His mouth opens in an “oh,” suddenly understanding.

 

“Oh. Levi. Not...not because of--that. I just haven’t updated it since I first became a squad leader. My circumstances have changed since then.”

 

“They have?”

 

Erwin smiles. “Yes.”

 

Levi knows better than to pry into Erwin’s mysterious proclamations, especially these days. He looks away. 

 

“I don’t have one at all,” Levi says. “Don’t really see the point. Everything should go to you and the orphanage. Historia can sort it out, why should anyone else have to get involved?”

 

“To me?”

 

Erwin is utterly shocked. Levi frowns.

 

“Yes, to you. Don’t look so surprised.”

 

Erwin doesn’t say anything else. He smiles at the ground as they walk.

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing, Levi.”

 

“Cryptic bastard,” Levi mutters, far too fondly.

 

What little daylight the city receives from the surface disappears in the early evening. Street lamps flicker to life. They turn down a road with loud, crowded homes. Fiddlers play on the sidewalk and others clap to keep a beat as children and couples dance freely in the street.

 

A woman walks up to them, smiling and twirling her skirt to the music.

 

“Fancy a dance, sir?”

 

She extends her hand to Erwin. Levi folds his arms, wishing he could disappear.

 

“Oh!” Erwin looks at Levi and back at her. His voice jumps in pitch. “I’m afraid I--”

 

The woman follows his gaze to Levi. She winks. “Ah, my mistake, you already got a partner.”

 

It’s Levi’s turn to stammer. “No, he--”

 

“Yes,” Erwin says. “I do.”

 

The woman dances off again, unperturbed. Erwin holds out his hand.

 

Levi snorts. “No way.”

 

Erwin raises his eyebrows, the corners of his mouth. Apparently it’s all the convincing Levi needs. He tightens the scarf around his head and takes Erwin’s hand, allowing him to lead Levi in a ridiculous twirl under his arm. It feels safe here under the low light of the city, countless leagues away from anyone who would recognize the two of them.

 

“This is ridiculous,” Levi informs him.

 

Erwin hums to the music, pulling him closer until Levi can feel how warm he is. He still smells like the surface, like grass and sunlight.

 

“You’re hopeless,” Levi says. “I should be leading you.”

 

“More than you know.”

 

Firelight crawls up the wall, flirting with shadows in a slow bounce. The light and the music cast a spell Levi could so easily fall under. It would be nothing to take Erwin’s waist, press together, sway with him until the fiddlers all went home. He could hardly hear the music anyway, not over the hummingbird heartbeat in his ears. In the morning they could pretend it never happened. He was good at pretending. He only wishes he was as good as Erwin.

 

“We should return, shouldn’t we,” Levi says.

 

“Yes.” Erwin’s hand tightens in Levi’s, then lets go. “You’re right.”

 

Already his shoulders straighten. Already something dutiful covers the light in his eyes.

 

Levi can’t bear to see it. He looks toward the surface. A glimmer catches his attention.

 

“Not yet,” he says. He takes Erwin’s wrist. “One more stop.”

 

*

 

It’s cold near the air vents on the rooftops. Levi steadies Erwin’s right side as they sit on a steely stretch of flat tile. They settle close together for warmth.

 

“See that?” Levi says. He points toward a row of grates on the surface street above, where starshine blurs away the iron bars. “Me and Kenny used to come up here and tell stories.”

 

“What kind of stories?”

 

“Stories about people on the surface, imagining what their lives were like. Imagining if our lives were like theirs.”

 

Erwin shifts, his shoulder brushing against Levi’s. His eyes follow the smear of stars, more relaxed than Levi’s seen him in far too long. 

 

“Thank you for bringing me here,” Erwin says.

 

Levi watches him for a minute, taking advantage of his distraction, his stillness and peace. Then he unbuckles a pouch in his pack. He pulls out a slim box. He hasn’t let the serum leave his possession since Erwin entrusted it to him.

 

“I always thought he must have hated me,” Levi says, drawing Erwin’s attention back. “That I disappointed him, or that I wasn't good enough. And then he gives me this.”

 

Erwin puts his hand on the box, a centimeter of air separating their fingers. “Whatever happened before doesn't matter in the end. I'm glad you got to see him before he--so you could straighten things out.”

 

“No regrets, right?”

 

Erwin smiles wryly at the words they’ve both tried and struggled to live by. Levi puts the box away.

 

The last several weeks have left Levi preoccupied with the idea of things left unsaid. If either of them died in Shiganshina, what would he want to leave with Erwin? He couldn’t live with himself if all he did was give Erwin one more load on his burdened mind. But sometimes Erwin looks so lost, so far away, that Levi wishes he could tell him, just to bring him back. Sometimes he wonders how it would change Erwin to know he was loved.

 

A few streets away a hatch opens on another roof. Several children pour out the door, settling down on the roof and sharing a loaf of bread between them. Elsewhere cats chase each other through winding alleyways, and a single violin sings into the night.

 

“See?” Levi says. “It’s not all ugly down here.”

 

A shiver curls through Levi’s spine. Erwin reaches for the pack and pulls out the blanket, settling it around Levi’s shoulders. The slow trails of his hand leave much warmer shivers over Levi’s skin. Levi tucks his smile into the blanket, the folds of his scarf. 

 

“Not ugly at all,” Erwin says softly, so much later Levi can’t quite remember what they were talking about.


End file.
